


Sam Winchester Versus The Octogurt

by Astarloa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: hoodie_time, Crack, Gen, Sick Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 20:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarloa/pseuds/Astarloa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt by Marieincolour at the Hoodie_time hurt/comfort meme on LJ: I'd like to see some good old-fashioned H/C. No monsters, no fuglies, no witches. Just.. Say there's a long drive, and a gas station and, oh, Dean, what are you doing on the floor behind the candy aisle?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sam Winchester Versus The Octogurt

Life, Sam thought, poking at the wilted leaves of a cabbage with the tip of one finger, was filled with uncertainty. 

As thoughts go it wasn’t especially profound. 

For this Sam blamed the fact he’d been trapped inside the car with his snuffling, wheezing brother for eight hours straight, only to find himself wandering through a rundown supermarket-come-gas-station. He leaned down to peer doubtfully at a box of laundry detergent whose faded graphics suggested a manufacturing date circa 1970 and then ambled off to look at yoghurt. 

Against the cruel and capricious winds of fate yoghurt stood firm and certain; both in its eternal proliferation of flavours and the knowledge that the ones you actually wanted would never be packaged together.

In many ways, Sam decided, developing his theory further, a sick Dean was a lot like yoghurt: filled with frightening cultures of unknown origin and yet utterly predictable. As much as Sam may have wished otherwise, it was a universal truth that Dean Winchester in possession of the common cold, influenza, or other miscellaneous plague, would cling to denial like a particularly tenacious octopus, suction cups poised and at the ready. 

Yeah, his brother was totally an Octoghurt…or perhaps a Yogopus. As an almost-Stanford-graduate and hunter extraordinaire, Sam knew these things.

Earlier that day Dean had proclaimed his sneezing fits were an allergic reaction to Sam’s aftershave, not even slightly dissuaded by Sam’s insistence it was the same brand he’d been using every day for the last four years. Of course, allergies or not, Dean had also denied any knowledge of the tissue box wedged under the driver’s seat of the Impala, its white squares only emerging when he thought Sam wasn’t watching.

Which, you know, whatever. 

Dean was fine. Sam was fine. Everything was _fine_.

Or it would have been, if only Sam hadn’t made a grave tactical error and expressed the view that Dean looked flushed. At which point his brother launched into a complex explanation of fevers and coughing that had nothing whatsoever to do with the human immune system. As best Sam understood it, Dean’s analytic framework revolved around the combined and hitherto unknown effects of Global Warming, possums, and egg whisks. He’d been secretly impressed, if not more than a little disturbed.

Sam had been on the verge of flinging himself out onto the road, gravel rash be damned, when Dean pulled into the gas station and forced Sam inside with much poking, prodding, and the occasional pinch. Sam didn’t really understand why, given that he’d been promptly abandoned next to a magazine rack at the front of the store and left to fend for himself. The last he’d had seen of his brother was a pair of bowed, jean-clad legs disappearing off down aisle three with a wobbly, if determined, gait. 

Sam hunched over to make himself look as small as possible – which wasn’t very – and started reading the nutritional label on a block of cheese. As an Unusually Tall Person, he’d learnt from bitter experience that entering a supermarket unaccompanied could be a risky enterprise. All it took was one person asking him to pull something from the top shelf before the hoards would descend, beady eyes alight at the prospect of having a human crane at their disposal.

All of which Dean knew very well, the dick. 

Sam may have continued working himself into a fit of fratricidal annoyance had his thoughts not been interrupted by the sound of a loud crash. He looked down to see a tin of clam chowder emerge from a nearby aisle, roll happily past him, and continue on towards the toilet paper.

Huh. 

So, that was a little weird.

Tossing aside the now deformed and finger-marked cheese, Sam crept towards the aisle and peered cautiously around the corner. The source of the crash quickly became evident. A man wearing an all too familiar Henley was lying on the dirty, linoleum floor, surrounded by canned goods.

“Dean!”

Sam abandoned his hiding spot and lumbered towards Dean with barely concealed panic, not unlike a buffalo making its annual migration.

“Hey, man, what are you doing down there?” he asked, hands moving up and down Dean’s chest, automatically searching for broken bones or life-threatening bite marks. _Good call, Sam, ‘cause you can never be too careful with those carnivorous potatoes_ , a voice in his head mocked. He shoved it away and refocused his attention on his brother. 

The bright spots of colour on Dean’s cheeks and nose were now matched by an angry, red lump on his forehead. 

“Soup,” Dean grunted, miserably, one arm flailing at the tins. 

“Soup?” echoed Sam, the corner of his mouth flirting with a smile, because seriously. Dean sounded all of about five years old. Not that Sam could remember his brother at that age, of course, or knew much of anything about children, but still. Five sounded about right. 

It was almost adorable.

Dean nodded, eyes glazed and watery, before contorting with a violent sneeze. “Souuuup,” he moaned, flopping back onto the ground. 

“Soup,” Sam agreed with a sigh, rocking back on his heels to avoid another fine spray of droplets. If he’d harboured any doubts that Dean was sick, finding him collapsed under an avalanche of canned soup pretty much cleared up the uncertainty. Dumbass. 

After much careful study, Sam had discovered the most accurate way of tracking Dean’s health was to watch for the appearance of soup in his diet. Deep-fried everything with a side of grilled lard would be pushed aside – usually the second or third day after the initial onset of symptoms - in favour of chicken broth, creamed tomato soup and, on one memorable occasion, split pea. His brother wasn’t half as sneaky as he liked to believe. Sam thought the soup thing must be a leftover memory from childhood; something their Mom had fed Dean before everything went to crap. 

When Dean showed no further signs of moving, Sam hooked his arms around his brother and dragged them both upright, grunting slightly at the dead weight. He could feel heat radiating from Dean’s body and worried for a moment about fever induced convulsions and brain damage, before deciding the latter probably wouldn’t be all that noticeable.

He propped Dean against the shelves and took a step back. 

Despite his obviously diminished state, Dean had been sufficiently lucid to grab a can of minestrone on his way up. It was now cradled against his chest, being rocked gently from side-to-side to the congested refrain of “Enter Sandman”.

Sam grinned and pulled out his phone. 

He really shouldn’t. 

Oh, except he so absolutely, fucking was.


End file.
